Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities, has published new figures showing that one London family cost £345,718 in police call-outs, ambulance alerts and social services interventions over the course of a year.

The household in Barnet, north London, is thought to be the most expensive encountered by officials as part of efforts by the Government to tackle the 120,000 “troubled families” who cost the state £9 billion a year in crime, anti-social behaviour, disruption in schools and health problems.

The figures do not include money paid out to the families in benefits so the cost to the taxpayer could be even higher.

The data, released by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), also shows that one single-parent family in the south west of England cost local agencies including the council and police force more than £400,000 in just two years.

One member of that family cost the public purse over £290,000 in a year, the report said.

A family in Salford, Greater Manchester, previously thought to be the country's most dysfunctional, was last year tracked down by the Daily Telegraph and found to have cost around £200,000 a year.

Samantha Galbraith and her children are believed to have cost taxpayers around £1million during a decade of anti-social behaviour.

The Prime Minister has promised £448 million to be given to councils that help these families avoid “social failure” and turn their lives around.

Councils will be paid for helping families find work, cut anti-social behaviour, attend school regularly and cost taxpayers less overall.

The local authorities are expected to identify the families in their areas and launch schemes using local charities and private firms to turn their lives around.

The Government is providing councils with £4,000 for each family they successfully help on the “payment by results” system.

The money will go towards reducing truancy, youth crime and anti-social behaviour, or putting parents back into work.

Those who refuse to accept help will be faced with eviction or having benefits removed.

In Barnet just 18 troubled families cost taxpayers £1,729,112 in a year – an average of just over £96,000 per family.

The money was spent on prison and probation services, policing, health costs and benefit payments to the families.

Writing for Telegraph.co.uk Mr Pickles also disclosed that in Solihull in the West Midlands, just three per cent of households account for almost a fifth of overall local authority spending on families.

“That can't be right at any time,” Mr Pickles said. “But during a period of austerity, when we are still tackling a legacy that left us with the largest overdraft in the European Union it is even less justifiable, especially when hard working people continue to bear the brunt of anti-social behaviour in their communities.”

The Communities Secretary said that officials have encountered one family in Cheshire that had 153 “interventions” in just 12 months at a total cost to the taxpayer of £93,000.

Mr Pickles insisted that problem families will be turned around in “bigger numbers than ever before” in 2013.

"The prize here is potentially huge, both in terms of reducing the financial cost on the public purse and the human costs on families and communities,” Mr Pickles said at a Local Government Association conference on troubled families

“The savings we can make for the taxpayer would far outweigh the extra money we are putting in.

"Momentum is building behind this work and we will do much more in 2013. “We will start showing the communities around these families that things are changing for the better, with kids back in school, crime coming down and parents sorting out their problems and getting back towards work. And we will do all this in bigger numbers than ever before."

Mr Pickles said that councils will save billions of pounds by intervening in problem households.